


Sympathy Pains

by Metal_Gear_Steve



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22570759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metal_Gear_Steve/pseuds/Metal_Gear_Steve
Summary: Yaz has bad period pains on board the TARDIS, and she's out for the count. The Doctor has similar symptoms, but the pain she's experiencing is 100% new to her. Is this a case of ignorance on the Doctor's part in regards to her new womanhood, or is something else at play?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Sympathy Pains

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just gonna say it - I'm a man. I'm not familiar with how periods feel. I thought this story idea was interesting, but I'm definitely no expert on the subject and I understand if a story like this being written from the perspective of someone who's never experienced a period is a cause for concern. 
> 
> If you like the idea, but find the way I wrote about it to be reductive, ignorant or inaccurate, then I welcome criticism, responses and/or your own take on this concept in your own story. I hope you'll enjoy what I've written, but if this is a deal-breaker for you, I understand and respect your position on the matter.
> 
> Anyway - hi, Doctor Who fandom! I enjoyed writing my last stories back in 2018, and now with Doctor Who once again ruling my life like it always does, I feel like writing for the show again. I've got a whole new project on the way, but after a few writing exercises, I had this idea and I wanted to get it out there before I got lost in another story. I hope you like it!
> 
> Feel free to read Thasmin into this, but it works either way.

It was a day like any other aboard the TARDIS. Ryan was thumbing through apps on his phone, Graham had taken to gardening recently and had been tending to a small stock of alien plants. The only outlier in the room was Yasmin - she was curled up in the biggest chair she could find, with a blanket tightly wound around her and a body temperature that even a master chowder chef would describe as "clammy".

She wasn't sick with some alien super-bug, not had she come down with a terrestrial kind of flu. As far as pathogens go, she was fine. No, the issue was a lot more conventional - she was on her period.

She'd been up to go to the toilet at least five times since waking up. The first two times, she recounted to a put-off Ryan and a sympathetic Graham, nothing happened - but the third time had been nothing short of a nightmare for anyone or anything involved. And on top of that, she continued as Ryan turned away and Graham turned a little bit green, the two other times were about as bad, resulting in one of her worst days in ages.

Yaz wouldn't call herself candid about such matters, but this particular cycle had her in a worse place than just about any other time this had happened. Was it the flying? Some sort of side effect to time travel? Any number of scenarios would make sense to her, if she wasn't using every ounce of her willpower to will the pain away.

The men went about their activities as Yaz laid on that lounge chair, rolled up into a ball with a blanket. No-one had seen the Doctor up to that point - that is, until she crashed through the door and collapsed in a heap.

As Ryan went over to see what was wrong, the Doctor gasped and grabbed a nearby railing. She managed to foist herself up to her feet, and she made her way to the end of the railing, her legs wobbling the entire way.

"Pain...! Not used to it... Why...?" The Doctor gasped as she waddled to a nearby seat. "Feels like... cramps? But inside..."

"Oh, brother," Ryan exclaimed. "This is a new one."

The Doctor got up - waving away Graham's offer to help - and she settled herself on a nearby counter top. Yaz had poked her head up to see what all the commotion was about.

The blonde Time Lord pulled a large screen down, with handles on the side like a periscope. Clicking in a pair of buttons, the machine sent a vertical ray down over her body, producing an affirmative "Ping!" when it had finished scanning.

"Doctor..." Graham asked gingerly. "Your symptoms sound like they might line up with... y'know..."

Graham flicked his head towards Yaz. The Doctor looked at her, and then back towards Graham in horror.

"Oh god, Yaz is sick too?! That can't be good, we must have run into an-- hooaugh!!"

The Doctor collapsed in on herself, putting her hands on her knees as another bout of pain hit her abdomen. Placing a hand on the counter again to support herself, she waved Graham off again.

"Stay back, Graham! You too, Ryan! I don't want you two getting sick as well!"

Ryan chucked a baffled glance towards Graham.

"Should I tell her, or...?"

Graham cleared his throat.

"Doc, Yaz isn't sick in the... usual sense."

"Still sick, though!" Yaz called out. "Feelin' pretty awful, to tell you the truth!"

"Yeah, well..." Graham trailed off. "Absolutely. It sounds like a right pain."

"I wish it was a right pain, mate," Yaz bristled.

Graham took a step back.

"Look, I'm really not qualified to be saying this, especially to a woman."

The Doctor shot a confused, disarmed glance at Graham. "What's being a woman got to do with this?"

Graham began to go red in the face. He moved his hands like he was trying to articulate a thought, before dropping them back in front of him.

"Doc, Yaz is having 'er period right now. A mighty bad one too, from the sounds of it."

The Doctor stared blankly at Graham for a few seconds.

"But... that shouldn't be affecting me. Time Lords don't have that sort of cycle - at least, not to the same degree as a human."

As if to reaffirm her deduction, the scanning machine dropped down with another "Ping!", showcasing its findings in a 3D hologram of the Doctor's organs. The Doctor did have some irregular movement and irritation in her abdomen, but they weren't due to any menstual issues.

"Huh," Graham exclaimed as he took the holograph in. "So you said, Doc."

"What do you mean, Graham?" Ryan said as he wandered over. "How'd you learn how to read medical holograms?"

"Well, this thing here," Graham explained as he pointed to an organ that was flashing red, "is closer to the ribcage than... y'know, other stuff. And this one over here doesn't look like any organ I've ever seen."

Ryan shrugged. "Haven't you only seen your own x-rays? What's to say this isn't just a woman thing, like their guts are different from ours?"

"Okay, a little insensitive," The Doctor chimed in, "but you're both a little bit right."

The Doctor stumbled through the hologram and found a place to sit on a short set of stairs.

"There's no reason for those places to ache. There would be activity there if... but that's impossible, and there was no discolouration, so I'm ruling that out..."

Yaz looked over at the Doctor as she thought through everything that might be wrong. Her own pangs had alleviated slightly, if only because she had been focusing on an outside issue instead of the pain in her guts.

Ryan sat next to the Doctor, giving her some space to breathe.

"Maybe we're overthinking this, Doctor. I reckon this could be like this old wife's tale my gran used to swear by."

"Not sure how I feel about an old wife's tale," the Doctor responded with a furrowed brow, "but I'm open to ideas."

"She called them 'sympathy pains'," Ryan started. "They popped up a few times in her shows, but they also happened a fair bit in our family."

He glanced over at Yaz, drawing the Doctor's attention there as he did so.

"Whenever one of her sisters or close friends were in an accident, or even going through somethin' like childbirth - she claimed that she could feel it. Every time. I saw it enough times as a kid, I really think she was feeling pain for those people."

"She was an empathetic one, Grace." Graham wandered over until he stood beside Ryan and the Doctor. "I don't doubt for a second she was feeling what she did."

The Doctor let it all sink in. Looking at the symptoms, there wasn't a whole lot left to go on. And given that their symptoms were similar...

The Doctor got up again, staggering a bit on the steps. Graham caught her, and she made her way down the steps to see Yaz.

"How're you feeling, Yaz?" She spoke in a soft, slightly strained voice.

Yaz looked up at her with slightly damp eyes. "The gut pain's settled for now, but now I'm a bit of a mess. Like this is the worst period I've ever had, what am I meant to do?"

She wiped away some pooling tears, before curling up tighter with an unexpected "Rngh...!" sound.

"Speak of the devil, it's back!"

The Doctor didn't double over to the same extent as Yaz, but she did get caught in a wave of something, and she fell forwards onto the floor. Both women groaned as pain wracked their bodies.

"You warm the kettle up," Graham told Ryan. "I'm going to get another one of those chairs for the Doc."

\---

It wasn't long before The Doctor was holed up in a large, comfortable chair right next to Yaz. There was a small table between them, which held a pair of TARDIS-blue mugs with steaming-hot chamomile tea.

The Doctor leant over the armrest of her chair, and had Yaz's hand in both of hers.

"Don't worry, Yaz - I'm gonna be right here until you make it through."

A gurgling pain hit the Doctor's stomach, and she receded back towards her chair. Yaz withdrew her hand and rolled over towards the back of the chair, trying to ignore the pain that was wracking her body.

"Thanks, Doctor - it means a lot to hear you say that."

Graham popped over with a plate of biscuits - Kingstons and Orange Slice biscuits for Yaz, and Custard Creams for the Doctor.

"Here - feel better soon, alright?"

Yaz groaned appreciatively, and the Doctor squeaked out a "thank you" before returning to her previous position.

Between pangs, both women were able to enjoy their tea - and while it didn't fix everything that hurt, the pair was able to sit up after a while.

Yaz looked over at the Doctor as she dunked a custard cream into her tea.

_Does she really not get periods...? She sure seems like she's in pain, but she doesn't get many of the other symptoms. If she's not going through this, I don't know what to think..._

But Yaz recalled her dramatic entrance, her pained expressions as she tried to work out what was happening. And even if it came down to an old legend like sympathy pains, she must have been feeling something. She liked a joke, but the Doctor didn't seem to jest about personal matters like this.

_Sympathy pains... heh, it's more than I've gotten from Ryan._

She smiled as she took another sip of tea.

"Thanks for the support, Doctor. It's great having a friend to share this with - even considerin' the circumstances."

The Doctor beamed back at Yaz.

"We'll beat this together, yeah?"

Yaz sat back into her chair. "Yeah."

The pair sat quietly, watching Graham tend to his plants and Ryan play something on his phone. For a while, everything seemed okay.

That is, until a thought occured to Yaz.

"Whew, I'm not looking forward to next month."

The Doctor laughed lightly, smiling apologetically over at Yaz. Her face soon changed, with unpleasant surprise and even a little bit of horror as Yaz's statement sunk in.

"Wait, hold on - next month?!"


End file.
